• Question: What discovery are you most proud of?

    Asked by anon-209834 to Verity, Sergio, Nick, Maria, David, Annette on 12 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Nick Werren

      Nick Werren answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      So if you asked a scientist to show you a particle being quantum, they would show you a very expensive lab. Inside this lab there’d be a device that costs a lot of money and holds the particle inside, and stops ANYTHING from interacting with it. This particle will then be behaving in a very weird and wobbly (quantum) way.

      One of my results shows that if you allow a particle to be interacted with, then it will actually be MORE quantum and MORE weird! This could mean that one day we can spend less money on making sure our particles are protected from everything else. This could mean that medical scanners, like MRI machines, could be smaller AND we might be able to invent new technology with it!

    • Photo: Sergio Adan Bermudez

      Sergio Adan Bermudez answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      I think in my case, I have not done enough research to be very proud of. But I could say that I am proud to contribute to science and hopefully before I finish the PhD to be proud of an interesting discovery related to anti-cancer drugs and curing cancer.

    • Photo: David Whitworth

      David Whitworth answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      A bit like Sergio, I have yet to make a discovery to be proud of as I have only been doing this for a few months, however I am very proud of the fact I have got to where I am. I was never a top level student, mostly mid sets for all subjects, but yet know I am studying to become a Dr of Astrophysics! Hopefully by this time next year I will have a much better answer to this question.

    • Photo: Maria Walach

      Maria Walach answered on 13 Mar 2019:

      There are quite a few things, but I will tell you about my most recent discovery, which I think is really cool:
      I found out that during a geomagnetic storm (when there are lots of energetic particles whizzing around Earth in space), the motion of the particles in the ionosphere (the most upper parts of the atmosphere, where space begins) moves in ways that we didn’t know about and this can filter down into the atmosphere and change the weather patterns!
      It’s a very direct impact of magnetic fields in space changing and then changing the way particles in the atmosphere move. The interesting thing is, that the particles in the part of the atmosphere that makes the weather don’t usually respond to changes in the magnetic field, but the ones in the ionosphere are different and they do!
      Eventually, we are trying to use this knowledge to build a better model for the electric field in the ionosphere and that can then be used in atmospheric modelling to predict the weather better.

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